Gift of OneLiners
by Werepuppy Black
Summary: The Pumpkin Prince has an essay to write...First NBC so concrit will be gratefully accepted
1. All About Me

**Gift of One-Liners**

Okay. So hey. I'm Venom. Venom Skellington, the Pumpkin Prince of all Halloween Town and heir to the Pumpkin King, to give the full title but I always think that makes me sound a bit pretentious. And it is a bit of a mouthful now that I think about it. So, yeah I'd be happier if you were just to call me Venom. You're probably thinking it's an odd name considering what my parents names are but I'm supposedly named after my great great grandfather. Who wasn't exactly the greatest ruler of Halloween Town so I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that.

Right, now this essay is about Halloween Town. Or more to the point, Halloween Town from the view of the young royals. All the kid's whose parents are in charge of the different holiday towns have to write one, part of this whole 'cultural experience' thing our parents think will be so good for us to experience. I just realised that the above sentence will make no sense unless you happen to be me so I'd better explain. After my dad, Jack Skellington, you've heard of him most likely, _everyone's _heard of him. Anyway, after he made a mess out of Christmas (note: NEVER let Dad read this - he'll...re-kill me) all the holidays started to pay attention to each other. This circle of holiday leaders was created so that nothing like Dad's mess (note - seriously Dad is not to get his hands on this essay) would happen again.

After the leaders created their circle they got it into their heads that it would be a good idea for all their kids to interact. Which, I will admit, in theory is a fantastic idea. Gets the bonds started when their young so that when it becomes the kids turn to take over, there's already good relations. Pity they never include bloody Romeo in their theory. But I'll get to him later. First, I wanna explain about my home.

Halloween Town, despite its connections with the dark and dangerous, is actually a cool place to live. Although it's filled with - and believe me I _loathe_ this term - creatures of darkness, it's a pretty friendly community, and everyone seems to get along alright. Well, there is always a problem with Boogie's Boys (kinda oddly named considering one of them is a girl) but most of the time they're alright. Well, Shock and Barrel are. Lock has a tendency to be slightly sadistic. Dunno how they put up with him, but I guess its one of those unbreakable bonds of friendship.

As its name suggests, Halloween Town is concerned with the holiday of Halloween. According to my dad, it used to be a lot more solemn, as people used to pay their respects to their dead relatives. All Hallows Eve it was called then. According to both my family history, and the history books, Halloween originated under the name Samhain, who was my great, great, great, great, great grandfather, give or take a couple of 'greats.' It was supposed to have come from Ireland and according to Dad we have Irish family so I'm guessing that bit's probably true. It used to be quite a religious thing - celebrating all these past people. It's become a lot more...popular though. Influenced by a lot of what people call 'pop culture' but some still celebrate it the old way. In Halloween Town we try to include all the ways that Halloween is celebrated into our annual Halloween celebrations. Which is why they take so long to plan. But that's left mostly to the officials, the rest of the population have jobs to do.

So yeah, that's the Halloween Town I know. Of course, as the Pumpkin Prince I have a lot of royal duties to do, which include helping to plan each and every Halloween. It's a little tiring sometimes, mostly because the Mayor always seems to lack new thoughts, but in the end its worth it because Halloween is a holiday that a lot of people enjoy.

Another one of my royal duties, and one of my duties as heir to the throne, is to attend all 'future holiday leader' meetings. We're holding out for a better name, but so far we've not really had any luck. The meetings take place in a different town once a month, and they're usually pretty boring. We just sit and discuss the plans for the upcoming holidays. Or we talk about whatever we can think of. Being part of the 'Future Holiday Leaders' means that you get invited to a lot of events. The majority of which seem to happen in Valentine Town, hosted by Cupid's only son Romeo Casanova, just referred to as Romeo by most.

I hate him.

Literally, he's an arrogant pompous jerk who seems to thrive off of all his adoring fan-girls. And, despite his town's reputation for being all peaceful (yeah - massive lie. How many fights have been started over love? Too many) Romeo seems to delight in bullying anyone he doesn't like. Guess who he doesn't like? If you guessed me then you're dead right. Me and Seamus (son of Patrick - and you guessed it from St. Patrick's Day Town.) He picks on Seamus mostly cos Seamus has that whole Irish charm thing going for him, which Romeo's fan girls seem to like. And the reason he bullies me is pretty obvious - I'm a skeleton. He doesn't really seem to like Halloween, could be because it is really easy to scare him. Pity this year the Holiday Leaders and their families comes to Halloween Town to celebrate Halloween with us. I'm sure I can think up something fun for him to do. Something to repay him for all the..._kindness_ he's shown me.

So...erm...yeah. Think that's my essay done. Let's see, I've explain a bit about me. A bit about my town and its people, as well as how we celebrate our holiday. And I've put in a bit about the whole Future Leaders thing. That should do it. Right, now back to planning revenge plan against Romeo...


	2. What I Learned About Christmastown

_**A/N:**__ So, erm, I decided to write another chapter, or in Venom's pov, another 'essay' of my little fic. I will point out right now that I had to go and research all this information so I'm pretty sure my information is correct. But the topic that Venom that had to write meant touching on areas of religion, which of course he would give his own comments on. I apologize right now if I offend anyone, this was not my intention, I just simply tried to write it in the way that he would view it. So, erm, I hope you like this chapter

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So it's been a while since I had an essay to write; but the adults who 'supervise' the Future Leaders of the Holiday Towns, at least … I think that's what they're calling us now, declared that we didn't know enough about each other's holidays and declared that we should pair up to write about the others. For those of you who don't know, and mostly to show that I do pay attention to something other than planning an evil revenge on than the 'right honourable' Romeo Casanova, son of Cupid, I'll list the holidays, and the kids associated with each, starting at the beginning of the human calendar year.

Romeo Casanova, Crown Prince of Valentine Town  
Seamus, Prince of St Patrick's Town  
Spring, the daughter of the ruling mayor of Easter Town. (We've got a mayor too, but in Easter Town the role of 'mayor' is inherited, instead of elected.)  
And then it's me, Venom Skellington, Pumpkin Prince of Halloween Town  
Patience, Corn Princess of Thanksgiving Town  
And finally, Holly, granddaughter of Sandy Claws, who rules Christmastown

Now, since the adults in charge don't exactly trust us to sensibly pair up, they decided to pair us up instead. One girl and one boy to each pair. Romeo was paired with Patience, Seamus with Spring, and me with Holly. Out of all the pairings, I think I'm the best off 'cause despite the difference her grandfather and my dad have, me and Holly get on pretty well. She's a cool girl compared to some I know, and no, I'm not counting Shock in that. Actually I had a crush on Shock once, I sorta learned the hard way that crushing on Shock is not a good thing to do. Lock is _really_ evil when it comes to Shock, not to mention possessive. But that's me sort of getting off the point isn't it?

So this essay is What I Learn About Christmastown, and in it I am to recall whatever the hell it was that Holly taught me. Now according to Holly, you could claim that originally, and by that I mean a really long time ago, even by Holiday Town standards, Christmas started out as the ever popular festival of lights in many cultures. The first festival which she could think of that had a name in the history of Christmas was the Natalis Solis Invicti, celebrated by the Romans on what would have been roughly the 25th of December. It was a celebration of the "birthday of the undefeated sun," with the use of the title Sol Invictus meaning that different solar deities could be worshipped collectively.

See, Christmas pretty much gained it's name when it became - at some point in its history - a respectively Christian holiday. Holly tells me that it was possibly this Roman celebration that led to which date Christmas was celebrated on, as early Christian writers connected the rebirth of the sun to the birth of the saviour. Which is pretty poetic, and insightful when you think about it. I mean, they were living in a time when someone high up taking a disliking to you could lead to your death, so for them to be this philosophical is something to be commentated I think. I mean, it's unknown when they linked these things, but we know, well Holly knew and told me, that they eventually did. The earliest reference of Christmas actually being celebrate as Christmas is in, I'll double check my notes here, 354 AD, and in the East, the early Christians celebrated Christmas as part of the Epiphany, though that festival celebrated mostly of the baptism of their saviour.

According to Holly, or at least according to Holly's grandfather's history books, during the Middle Ages, Christmas was mostly overshadowed by the celebration of the Epiphany, but there were celebrations for Christmas. They took place in the form of public festivals, and incorporate ivy, holly, and other evergreens, and gift giving took place among those with legal relationships, such as tenant and landlord.

Then we get to the 18th Century, and boy was that a fun time. See there was a lot of religious reformation taking place during the 18th Century, and while the Protestants condemned the celebrating of Christmas as the "trappings of popery," the Roman Catholics responded by prompting the festival into a more religious type thing. I don't really get that whole reformation thing, though I think that's mostly because my holiday is more commonly associated with celebrating those who are dead so I don't really think I can comment. Holly told me that there's still problems to this day, but that people are trying to sort it all out, we just have to let them see the bigger picture on their own. I'm gonna agree with her on the basis that I really don't understand it in the way she does.

Christmas really became the Christmas that's commonly celebrated today round about the 1880's, when Holly's grandfather, Sandy Claws became the Sandy Claws that's known worldwide. I mean, there is recordings of him in the 15th century, but that image that really became the standard was finalised in about the 1880's. Holly often states that the commercialisation of the holiday in the 20th century meant a loss in the old values that accompanied it, but also says that its nice to not hear as many of the old arguments as there used to be. Which makes me wonder something, in an attempt to make the world safer for people to live in, and for there to be less random killing, do people living in the mortal realm need to become sorta desensitised to the way that they live?

Anyway, Sandy is the more popular of the gift bringers, which is why he sorta rules Christmastown, but there are other who belong to different cultures, like the Italian La Befana, who actually resides in Christmastown and makes fantastic soup. Then there's other things like Christmas trees, and other decorations, but they seem mostly like some sort of fancy extras that you put on top of something just to make it nicer to look at. It's become more and more of a thing to show off; especially in countries like America (with no offence meant to the place 'cause they often have great Halloween parties.) And there's all the 'controversy' surrounding it now, which Holly did explain to me, but in my own opinion, it boils down to people trying too hard not to offend anyone. Which is all well and good, and I totally respect it, but when it stops people enjoying what started off as a nice little holiday then hasn't it sorta went to far?

I don't really know, and I expect that it's something the Leaders all discuss at their meetings, and something I'll need to discuss one day, but that day isn't today. I think I've pretty much shown that I do think of things other than planning a rather excellent revenge of bloody Romeo (I'll admit this much - it involves werewolf droppings); and that I did actually go and learn about the holiday of Christmas. I'm not really all that great when it comes to concluding essay, my English tutor always pulls me up about it, so I think I'll just stop writing. I mean, I've got an invite to one of Barrel's parties, and they're always mind blowing.

Spooks an' tricks to ya all,

Venom Skellington, Pumpkin Prince


End file.
